Martin says Fine Gael does not need new deal to stay in government

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar does not need a formal agreement, such as the confidence and supply arrangement, in order to continue in power, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has said.

Mr Martin’s statement came after Mr Varadkar said that he hoped to meet the Fianna Fáil leader next week to discuss a potential extension to the deal which underpins the Fine Gael-led minority government.

The deal says the governing arrangement between the Dáil’s two biggest parties should be reviewed at the “end of 2018”, but Mr Varadkar wants to agree a successor arrangement before the October budget.

The Taoiseach said he wanted to avoid a “cliff edge” as the Brexit negotiations reached a crucial phase, and declined to rule out calling an election if a new deal was not agreed before the budget.

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“I think it is very much in the interests of the country that we know we are going to have a government in place, that we are going to have political stability, not just to negotiate a Brexit withdrawal agreement but to also bring the country through Brexit, and that would mean an extension of the confidence and supply arrangement,” Mr Varadkar said.

He said he was happy to continue the principle of splitting available resources on a 2:1 basis between spending increases and tax cuts, and when asked if there were grounds for an election if Fianna Fáil does not negotiate before the budget, he replied: “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Mr Martin says he will not be open to talks until after the budget, and has committed to the passage of the associated Finance and Social Welfare Bills, which usually take a number of weeks.

Mr Martin, at a lunch hosted by the Association of European Journalists, claimed Mr Varadkar’s statements about a potential extension of the arrangement have been “about putting politics before policy”.

‘Palpable nonsense’

“The idea that a government can’t do its job unless it has a guarantee of an extended term is palpable nonsense,” he said, in a statement that will be seen as challenging the Taoiseach to call an election in the case of an agreement not being reached.

“A lot of people have been quite rightly asking why there has suddenly been so much talk about the next election. The answer is a very simple one, the Taoiseach decided for whatever reason that it is in his interest to make this a central issue at the moment.”

Mr Martin also said Brexit would be a key issue over the next three to six months, with a EU-UK withdrawal treaty due to be concluded by October. He criticised Mr Varadkar and Tánaiste Simon Coveney for not keeping the Opposition engaged on the process.